Family Ever After
by nemebean
Summary: Mab learns that she may have something in common with a Disney princess.


This story builds on and refers to my previous two stories, Mom and Polar Vortex. You may want to read those first.

Family Ever After

We waited. In fact, we had been waiting for around ten minutes, and in that time we had moved one length of the room. A room full of switchback queues which meant we would have to cross it numerous more times before we reached the other end. This was not helping my companion's mood.

"Sarissa, my time is invaluable. More than even you know. I do not have time for this."

Mab, Queen of Air and Darkness, is not a patient immortal.

She was also not wrong. Since becoming the Summer Lady I had gained a new appreciation for just how much burden a noble of the faerie courts carried. Thanks to the perpetual secrecy of the faerie courts I didn't know exactly what my mother's responsibilities were, but as she was the Winter equivalent of my own superior, Titania, I could only assume they were significantly greater than even my own.

So although we were here to experience mortal life firsthand, I was forced to agree that we'd sufficiently experienced waiting in line.

But I...or the Summer mantle...or both...couldn't resist a little fun at her expense.

"Ah, but the anticipation makes it all the sweeter when you finally get on the ride," I said. "Without the wait it just isn't the same."

She raised one eyebrow, but otherwise gave no response.

The Summer mantle thought continuing to tie up the Winter Queen in such a trivial activity was a terrific idea. Even if it meant the Summer Lady was similarly occupied, that was still in Summer's favor – something like trading a bishop for a queen in chess. The mantle thought I should continue my charade for as long as Mab would allow it.

But I pushed the mantle's suggestion aside. While it was true I had used our status as enemies to talk Mab into continuing our visits to the mortal world, the underlying reason had as much or more to do with the fact that she was my mother. I didn't exactly come from your typical nuclear family (unless you meant "nuclear" in terms of the violence of the reactions that happened when we were together), but in our own ways we cared about each other. At least I thought she cared. It was always hard to tell with a being who was essentially incapable of showing overt maternal emotions toward me.

"Very well," I said at last, and cast a simple glamour that both made the mortals ignore us and encouraged them to move out of our way. We walked straight to the front of the line, and as we went I had to smile. There were plenty of awful aspects to having been forced into the role of Summer Lady, but being able to skip the line at Disney World was not one of them.

The ride we had been waiting for was the brand new Frozen Ever After at Epcot in Disney World. As this was our first trip to the mortal world since I became the Summer Lady, I decided to go somewhere we had been before. The Frozen ride seemed like a fairly safe choice with the Winter Queen as well. There was enough tension having the Summer and Winter mantles in such close proximity, so I didn't feel any need to add more.

We got in the boat that would take us through the attraction, and at first everything seemed to be going fine. The music was cheery, the animatronics exuded happiness, and everyone else on the ride seemed to be having a good time.

In retrospect, I should have known my mother would hate it.

A short ways into the ride I began to feel her tension building, and the further we got the more obvious it was. Even the other mortals in the boat started casting us furtive glances, as if they could sense something was wrong too. A faint sheen of real frost began to appear on all of the fake snow and ice in the ride, and some of the animatronics began to misbehave as they were subjected to conditions for which they had not been designed. This was It's a Small World all over again, except even worse. Finally, I put up a privacy glamour and confronted her.

"Okay, what's wrong?" I asked.

Her lips were compressed into a line so thin I wasn't sure she'd be able to open her mouth to respond, but she did.

"I agree to travel with you in good faith, and you bring me to this...mockery...of Winter?" she accused.

"Whoa, it's just a ride," I said, holding my hands up innocently. "I thought you might prefer something more Winter-like."

"Then you were mistaken. Perhaps the Summer mantle has affected your judgment."

I frowned. She'd had nothing but abject hatred for It's a Small World, but even that hadn't bothered her to this extent. In fact, I found it hard to believe she would let anything get to her so much that she would unleash her powers in such an undirected fashion. Winter was all about the ruthless and calculating use of power. Magic fueled by emotion was the domain of Summer. Something else must be in play here.

Then I got it. Her comment about the Summer mantle was the key. She wasn't upset about the ride – I mean don't get me wrong, I'm sure she actually disliked it too. But that she could deal with. What set her off was the possibility that this whole thing had been a plot to throw a veiled insult her way.

That was paranoia on an epic scale, but I understood. I'd spent enough time in the faerie courts to know it was well-founded, and after what happened with Maeve, well, who wouldn't be on their emotional guard? In fact thinking further on it, I realized the only time she ever made such extensive unintentional displays of her power was when Maeve or I were involved. When Maeve was taken, our mother had been so angry she couldn't speak directly to mortals without injuring them. When she thought I had been lost to the Summer court, she'd nearly frozen the mortal world until I convinced her we could still see each other.

And now she thought maybe that had been nothing more than a ploy. If the perceived insult had come from almost any other member of Summer, she'd have made note of it and calmly begun plotting an appropriate response. But it hadn't. It had come from me, now burdened by a Summer mantle, which would like nothing more than to make me into a knife it could bury in her emotional back. Whether either of us realized it at the time, she'd made herself vulnerable when she agreed to continue these outings.

I guess even for a Sidhe Queen nothing can get to you quite like family.

"Is there anything I can say that will make you believe this was an honest mistake?" I asked gently.

"It's doubtful. I have little room for trust, especially with someone of Summer."

That stung, but was not unexpected. If she'd also recognized her vulnerability, it was a safe bet she would do everything she could to distance herself from it. There was nothing I could do to fix this. But if I couldn't do anything, maybe someone else could...

"Then it seems we are done here," I said. "But before you go, there's someone you should meet."

She hesitated, then nodded once. I transported us out of the ride boat to a nearby Scandinavian-style building. The Elsa and Anna meet-and-greet. This time we skipped the line right away – I wasn't inclined to push my luck again.

"These two are from the ride," she said suspiciously when she saw who we were meeting. "Why them?"

"You wouldn't trust me if I told you," I pointed out. She inclined her head to acknowledge the point. "Then you'll just have to figure it out on your own, I guess." She still looked skeptical, so I continued. "Besides, think of it as an opportunity. If the whole thing is a ruse, then this meeting will prove me untrustworthy. If not, you might learn something interesting."

"It is a risk, but not a terrible one," she said. "And after all, the opportunity to gain insight into Summer is part of why I am here."

I smiled. I'd piqued her interest and engaged the Winter part of her by making it an opportunity to gain intelligence on a Summer "plot". Now all I had to do was guide the conversation in the right direction.

"Good. We might need a little different disguise this time though..." I winced inwardly as I realized what was the most logical one for this situation. Her pride had already been tested, and this would only make it worse.

In a flash, the mortals around us saw a mother and her five-year-old daughter, complete with sparkling, ice-blue Elsa dress, standing in our places. Except this time I was the mother and Mab was the daughter. True to form, through the glamour she gave me a dirty look. Her tiny avatar simply bounced around in excited anticipation of meeting two of her heroes.

"I want you to talk to her," I whispered. "It makes more sense this way."

She frowned but didn't argue, and we approached the two women.

"Queen Elsa," I said. "My daughter has something in common with you. She sometimes has trouble controlling her powers when she gets upset too."

Elsa and Anna both laughed, no doubt assuming that was code for something mundane like tantrums. My mother's brow furrowed as she tried to figure out where I was going with this.

Elsa knelt down in front of the glamour and said, "Do you have magic too?"

"Yes," she answered honestly.

"And do you have trouble controlling it?" continued Elsa.

"No," said my mother coolly, with a pointed glance in my direction. The glamour replied the same, but in a manner more appropriate for a child.

"Are you sure?" asked Elsa encouragingly.

"I suggest you not question my control of my powers." The glamour translated that as a shy, "I'm sure."

"Well you know what I learned?" Elsa continued anyway. "I learned that when I let my fear or anger or sadness control me, then I couldn't control my powers. But you know what else I learned?"

She paused. My mother's eyebrows lifted slightly in anticipation, and five-year-old her excitedly asked, "What?"

"I learned that the love of my family was all I needed to keep those bad emotions under control." She gave a fond nod in Anna's direction.

The glamour gasped happily at the revelation. My mother froze, then turned slowly toward me. Emotions flitted across her face too quickly to identify.

We posed for a picture and said our good byes, then walked out to World Showcase Lagoon. Around the lagoon was a walkway connecting 11 separate country areas, each made up to look like a miniature version of its namesake. We were in the Norway area, and began walking around the lagoon in silence. We'd reached Germany before either of us spoke.

"I see what you're trying to do, but it won't work," said Mab.

"Why?"

"I no longer have any family."

I rocked back slightly in surprise. "Umm, I'm standing right here, you know."

"As the Summer Lady. My enemy."

" _And_ as your daughter. Your family."

She shook her head. "Not anymore," she said sadly.

"Why not? Can't I be both? If I weren't, would we even be here?"

She stopped walking and stepped up to the railing around the lagoon. I followed. She stared out over the water and said, "You don't know the power of the mantles. They'll change you. They always do."

A chill slithered down my spine. Hadn't I had this exact conversation with Harry Dresden? Told him that Lloyd Slate didn't start out as a monster either?

But those were the words of a victim of the Winter Court and its Knight. I was no longer that scared, powerless girl, and with that change of situation I had gained a new perspective on the matter. True, the mantles changed their wearers. Only a fool would pretend otherwise. But now I also knew that the mantles didn't completely subsume one's personality.

Harry had been the Winter Knight for a while now and he didn't seem to have changed that much, at least based on what I'd heard of his exploits. He was still out saving the world from evil. Don't get me wrong, he scared the living daylights out of me, even as the Summer Lady. After all, he'd been involved to one degree or another in the deaths of both my predecessors. But he'd always been scary or Mab would never have wanted him for her Knight. No real change there then.

And my mother herself further supported my theory. After all, she might claim to be here only as my enemy in an attempt to gain intelligence, but she hadn't responded to me until I appealed to her as her daughter. Then there was her relationship with Maeve. It had been about as dysfunctional as possible, with Maeve plotting against her and neglecting her duties at every turn. And yet, even once it became clear that Maeve had to be replaced, our mother couldn't do it herself. She still cared too much.

That wasn't cold, calculating Winter. That was some piece of the mortal Mab had once been. Maybe it could be argued that Harry hadn't been Winter Knight long enough for it to consume him, but the same could not be said for my mother. She had been Winter Queen for an eternity, embraced the position, and yet there was still something of _her_ left in there.

"Maybe it will change me," I acknowledged. "I'm sure it already has. But you know what else I'm sure of?" The intensity of my voice made her turn to me. I looked her square in the eye. "Family doesn't stop being family just because times get tough."

She held my gaze for a moment more, then quickly looked back out over the water. She appeared thoughtful for a while. "I still can't trust you," she said at last.

"Nor I, you," I answered with a smile. "But I doubt we're the first family to have trust issues."

She fell silent again, then said, "I'm not sure you are correct, but I will grant that there seems to be more to this Elsa than I initially gave her credit for."

"I'll take that," I said, recognizing it as the largest concession she could give to a member of Summer. "Split a turkey leg with me before we go?"

A hint of a smile may have appeared on her face. "What if I don't want to share?"

The End

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License as derivative, noncommercial fiction.


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